I will be off blogging for a period of time…primarily due to some fairly intense professional commitments that require my entire attention and effort. While the blog is in ‘hiberation’, all comments have been disabled (you should still be able to read the earlier comments though)

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]]>http://satyameva-jayate.org/2015/01/18/in-hibernation/feed/0http://satyameva-jayate.org/2015/01/18/in-hibernation/Logging off facebook…http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/SatyamevaJayate/~3/faJoCLPOf-s/
http://satyameva-jayate.org/2014/12/27/logging-off-facebook/#commentsSat, 27 Dec 2014 10:39:18 +0000http://satyameva-jayate.org/?p=16889Dear Friends, from early next week, I will be ‘downgrading’ my engagement with facebook…It has been five years since I started the ||Satyameva Jayate|| facebook page..During that time, what started as another channel for my blog posts and thoughts has gone from strength to strength, attracting several thousands of members…Sometime around last year though (2013), I began to notice early signs of something being wrong…Earlier this year, my fears were confirmed..

Since this summer, I have paid less and less attention to my page…and the numbers/engagement shows this. Today, I finally decided to stop spending any serious time on it – at least for now. I will keep the page ‘open’ – for a while, at least..but the main ‘action’ will now be on twitter – and occasionally on the blog – which shall always remains the final source of all that I write about…(you can subscribe to my weekly newsletter here)

And to all my ‘friends’ on facebook, I am not abandoning you! You have my email – and my phone number – so just call or write. It is so much nicer than a fb “Like”!

Knowing the “history” that is taught in our schools, many of you may have never heard his name – or have only a faint recollection of him as “someone from south India”.

Bharathi was not only a freedom fighter and a social reformer far ahead of his times, he was also one of the greatest poets of his age..His poetry inspired the masses to fight against colonial rule.. Even more interestingly, he was probably one of the earliest leaders of the freedom struggle who had a clear view on enterprise, liberty and individual freedoms…

As KV Sarma mentions in his post about “The Visionary“,
“apart from being a Patriot at core…(he was) a true representation of Indian Right that supported enterprise and freedom during the time when “Gandhian Socialism and respect to Gandhi” was considered Nationalism”

As we rush through the 21st century, impatient in many ways with our past, we would do well to reflect in passing on this many-faceted son of India who gave so completely of himself to the liberty of his motherland.

Some of you may know that he was a contemporary of VVS Iyer and Sri Aurobindo and there is a museum in Pondicherry where he moved in 1908 to escape arrest. Pl take a moment to remember this extraordinary man today..and pl share this with your friends and especially the younger ones in your family.. जय हिंद, जय भारत! – शांतनु

]]>http://satyameva-jayate.org/2014/12/11/remembering-mahakavi-bharathiyar/feed/5http://satyameva-jayate.org/2014/12/11/remembering-mahakavi-bharathiyar/What does it take to create a revolution?http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/SatyamevaJayate/~3/EYrS2hxJY9g/
http://satyameva-jayate.org/2014/11/21/3-types-of-specialist/#commentsThu, 20 Nov 2014 21:23:48 +0000http://satyameva-jayate.org/?p=16859Courtesy, The three types of specialist, this excerpt from a passage of Kurt Vonnegut’s “Bluebeard” (emphasis added):

Slazinger claims to have learned from history that most people cannot open their minds to new ideas unless a mind-opening team with a peculiar membership goes to work on them. Otherwise, life will go on exactly as before, no matter how painful, unrealistic, unjust, ludicrous, or downright dumb that life may be.

The team must consist of three sorts of specialists, he says. Otherwise the revolution, whether in politics or the arts or the sciences or whatever, is sure to fail.

The rarest of these specialists, he says, is an authentic genius — a person capable of having seemingly good ideas not in general circulation. “A genius working alone,” he says, “is invariably ignored as a lunatic.”

The second sort of specialist is a lot easier to find: a highly intelligent citizen in good standing in his or her community, who understands and admires the fresh ideas of the genius, and who testifies that the genius is far from mad. “A person like this working alone,” says Slazinger, “can only yearn loud for changes, but fail to say what their shapes should be.”

The third sort of specialist is a person who can explain everything, no matter how complicated, to the satisfaction of most people, no matter how stupid or pigheaded they may be. “He will say almost anything in order to be interesting and exciting,” says Slazinger. “Working alone, depending solely on his own shallow ideas, he would be regarded as being as full of shit as a Christmas turkey.”

Slazinger, high as a kite, says that every successful revolution, including Abstract Expressionism, the one I took part in, had that cast of characters at the top — Pollock being the genius in our case, Lenin being the one in Russia’s, Christ being the one in Christianity’s.

He says that if you can’t get a cast like that together, you can forget changing anything in a great big way.

]]>http://satyameva-jayate.org/2014/11/21/3-types-of-specialist/feed/0http://satyameva-jayate.org/2014/11/21/3-types-of-specialist/On Anna, Selfishness & Corruption..http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/SatyamevaJayate/~3/gZWINyqXKQ4/
http://satyameva-jayate.org/2014/09/23/anna-selfishness-corruption/#commentsTue, 23 Sep 2014 14:54:22 +0000http://satyameva-jayate.org/?p=16781Last week I chanced on an interview of Anna Hazare in which he talked “about the inspiration behind his social activism, his philosophy and his vision for India”. The interview was from last year, a few weeks before AAP’s spectacular debut in Delhi. It had a quote that caught my eye. It was Anna’s response to the question, “In your opinion, what is the root cause of corruption?”

“The root cause of corruption is selfishness; the selfish nature of human beings”, Anna said. “They go to any lengths to pursue their self-interest…Second, there is no deep thinking about the purpose of life. And since there is no purpose to life, we want to fill that void with commodities, things. You become an MLA and an MP and in a short period of two or three years, you become a billionaire. How? Do you really need so much? Since you keep increasing your needs, corruption increases.”

These words were uttered in late 2013, in an atmosphere of despair and disgust with the state of affairs. These were the times when anger had given way to exasperation. Selfishness and materialism were easy scapegoats in such an environment. Sweeping generalisations were tempting and found wide acceptance.

Anna was not alone in his views. There were many who could not see the wood for the trees. Most activists & commentators failed to understand systems & processes and how incentives & consequences drove behavior. Such views had widespread acceptance – and not just among the “Aam Aadmi”. For instance, here is Chetan Bhagat writing about a year before Anna’s interview, “We, the Indian society, need to reflect on who we have become. Organisations like the RSS, who claim they care for India’s glory, should be fixing this by propagating good values in society. And organisations like the IAC should also send out the message that it is a lack of values within us, and not just a few bad guys at the top, that has turned India corrupt.”

Except we are not. Indians are neither more corrupt nor more honest than any other race.

What makes us behave differently is the environment around us – not the “materialism” or the “loss of values” – but deep-rooted flaws in the system. The behavior is driven more by self-interest than selfishness. In the absence of consequences, such behaviour very often degenerates.

But it is tempting to blame “people”. And far easier than explaining “the system” or the behaviour triggered by incentives and consequences.

In the same interview, when asked “Why do people elect criminals”, Anna said, “People are at fault here”.

Well, are they? Or is there the possibility that they are actually acting in self-interest?

Might it be that we (and here “we” includes the far broader group of voters than the urban, well-educated, high-income class) elect “criminals” not because they are criminals but because their criminality is of no consequence to the choice we are making at the polling booth?

Might it be that we elect such people because of an entirely different reason? Because they manage to get their work done? A ration card here, an admission there…an emergency medical treatment somewhere else? A job for a nephew? Or a cousin? Might it be that these matter more to the larger group of voters than the criminal background of the politicians?

And might this explain not only why people continue to elect politicians who are corrupt & venal, but do so with depressing regularity and astounding margins? It just might. And it just might be that it’s not the people who are at fault – or their “selfish” nature.

It just might be that the roots of the problem, as Raghuram Rajan pointed out so eloquently, lie in the lack of provision of public goods, in the appalling quality of delivery of public services and the layers and layers of intermediaries who ensure that the benefits barely trickle down to where they are needed or were intended.

It just might be that it’s not the people who are at fault but the morally bankrupt and thoroughly discredited system of “Mai-Baap Sarkar” – built on socialist foundations – that has made public services a joke. And it might be that it is the creation of monopolistic government providers – whether in education or healthcare or public transport – that has ruined these public services, not just degrading their quality and delivery but creating enormous reservoirs of corruption that boggle the mind.

And it might be that it is to navigate this labyrinthine system that the voter elects such a politician. Because he or she is the only one who can get the job done.

And so, unless this system is dismantled thoroughly, unless the whole idea of public services and their delivery is re-thought from scratch, unless the delivery mechanism is made accountable, all efforts at curbing corruption – whether they involve self-control or ill-thought laws like Jan Lokpal – are unlikely to have any real impact.

The only way to tackle this monster is by reducing the “powers” and scope of government. By restricting discretionary authority, by focusing on transparency, by simplifying processes. By making bureaucracy accountable. By having fewer laws. And by fixing the judicial system – so that the consequences for breaking the law are swift & transparent. This is what we need to make a babu think twice before demanding a bribe – or to stop motorists from jumping a red light. As for morals and values, let’s leave these to parents and teachers.